1981-'83 DMC De Lorean

John Z. De Lorean's recent passing has turbocharged the values of his "futuristic" sports cars

Feature Article from Hemmings Motor News

There are cars, and then there are automotive icons. The De Lorean Motor Company's De Lorean was a celebrity before it even turned a wheel, and it quickly came to define a decade. Innovative, distinctive and très Eighties, the Northern Ireland-built De Lorean sports car has maintained its popularity and is increasing in value nearly 25 years after the company's highly publicized demise.
John De Lorean's original intent was to sell a mid-engine sports car with a composite metal and fiberglass body and advanced safety features, with a target price roughly $1,500 higher than that of a contemporary Corvette. Starting with a rakish Giorgetto Giugiaro-designed body, De Lorean and his staff approached Lotus's Colin Chapman for assistance in turning the prototype into a production-ready sports car. Chapman suggested using the double-Y center backbone frame that underpinned his own Lotus Esprit, so it was decided that the De Lorean would feature this frame with a molded resin floor. The production car would use a Volvo-sourced single overhead-cam, 2.85-liter V-6 engine, which with Bosch K-Jetronic fuel injection and 8.8-compression, made 130hp at 5,500 rpm and 160-lbs.ft. of torque at 2,750 rpm; this engine was mated to a 180 degree-rotated Renault front-wheel-drive transaxle, and transmitted power through a five-speed manual or three-speed automatic gearbox.
This plebeian engine didn't set the sports car apart, but its striking body design and construction did. Its stylish Mercedes 300 SL-aping gullwing doors featured cryogenically treated torsion bars and required only 14 inches of side clearance to open. Grade 304 stainless steel body panels rested on a fiberglass inner structure mounted to the epoxy-rustproofed steel backbone frame, which cradled the gas tank and mounted the radiator and suspension in the front portion, and the V-6 and rear suspension in the rear. Staggered size tires--235/60 HR15s rear, 195/60 HR14s front--covering four-wheel disc brakes helped tame handling that might have been ill-affected by the Porsche 911-like 38/62 front/rear weight distribution.
Although the De Loreans coming to market were fully loaded with leather, A/C, a cassette stereo and more, they arrived with sticker prices more than twice their proposed rate--1981 model year cars cost $25,000, with another $650 required if the driver wanted to go shiftless. The sticker had risen to $28,650, plus a $575 destination charge, in 1982, which was about $6,000 more than a collector's edition Corvette and $6,000 less than a 911SC. With initial demand outstripping supply, dealers were happy to charge thousands over sticker, at least until the company's collapse dropped asking prices to well below retail.
Although some of the 8,583 De Loreans built between January of 1981 and December of 1982 have been used as daily drivers, racking up impressive six-digit mileage after their initial teething problems were resolved, a surprising number of them were mothballed and saved as future collectibles. This has led to a number of virtually brand-new cars being offered since the mid-1980s at prices in the $25,000-$35,000 range, or roughly equal what they cost when new. Average asking prices for nice, moderately driven De Loreans hovered in the high teens for more than a decade, but the death of the DMC founder in March 2005 caused a recent value spike; good cars now trade hands in the mid-20s, with "NOS" originals approaching $50,000.

This article originally appeared in the September, 2007 issue of Hemmings Motor News.